The Reform Party
by 964 Harlequin
Summary: It's been quiet in Gotham lately. Too quiet. Five years ago, all of Gotham's most notorious criminals dropped off the map and Batman decides to investigate. It couldn't be that they've all really decided to reform, could it? Batman's going to try to survive the headache-inducing quest to get the answer.
1. Chapter 1

The Reform Party

It was quiet. Very, very quiet. This was what Bruce Wayne was thinking as he settle into his favorite chair with a glass of fine wine after a long night of crime-fighting. Actually, it hadn't been very long at all. That night he'd thwarted nine car jacking's, seven muggings, five drive-by shootings, three bank robberies, two drug shipments, and a couple of punk kids with spray cans loitering outside of a Burger King...and that was it! And that had been _it_ for the past five years.

Bruce sighed. He really should be happy. In all his years of prowling the streets, he'd never seen Gotham so peaceful. It looked like he'd been making a difference to the city after all!

And that was why it was so quiet that night...and the night before, and the night before, and the night before. So, so quiet.

WHY WAS IT SO Mo%t3r-F*ck#n$ QUIET!

Now that he thought about, when was the last time he'd heard the Joker's demented cackle, or Two-Face's emphysema growl, or Harley Quinn's whining Brooklynese?

When was the last time Poison Ivy tried to turn him into a half man/half maple tree hybrid so she could sell her own line of Bat-Syrup on the black market?

When was the last time the Penguin sicked an entire flock of disease-carrying pink flamingoes on him?

When was the last time Croc threw a rock at him!

When-wait a minute. When was the last time he'd heard from any of them?

Bruce stood up from his chair and paced across his living room, while absentmindedly stroking his chin.

Maybe this was all some long game they were playing. They'd teamed up and decided to lull him into a false sense of security, thinking that he didn't have to worry about them anymore, and then, when he least suspected it...

Hmmm, perhaps. Or maybe they'd all been kidnapped, or discreetly picked off, one by one, by some even more insane and powerful villain trying to get rid of the competition for control of Gotham's underworld.

No, that couldn't be it. If such a criminal existed, surely he would have heard of them. But then what could explain him not hearing anything from what had been his biggest enemies for over five years now.

Bruce slammed his wine glass down on his coffee table in determination (squishing a defenseless ant in the process). He had to to investigate.

"To the Bat-Cave!" he shouted.

An hour later, Bruce was back in the batsuit (he wasn't actually planning on going anywhere, he just felt more productive when he had it on) and sitting in front of his computer, researching the possible whereabouts of his rogues gallery.

Mysteriously, there hadn't been any record of them committing crimes, anywhere, for the past five years. Arkham Asylum and Blackgate Penitentiary had no record of any of them having been inmates there during that time and no other prison or sanitarium had either.

"This doesn't make any sense," he said out loud to himself, "Joker, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Penguin, Killer Croc, Two-Face, Riddler, Mad Hatter, Scarecrow, um...uh...Puppet Guy whathisface. I've determined that their all still alive, but theres been no criminal activity from any of them for years now."

"Perhaps, they've all decided to reform and lead normal, law-abiding lives," a voice said from behind him.

"Oh, hi Alfred. Still alive?"

"And kicking, Master Bruce," Alfred said dryly.

"Look, Alfred, nothing would make me happier if that were the case, but I find it seriously hard to believe that every single one of them decided to reform. One of them, maybe, but not all of them. I mean, did they just get together and have a meeting and decide that it was just all too much trouble and agreed to reform _right there_. And none of them ever changed their minds and went back on it and they all have normal jobs now and no one notices or cares that they used to be psychotic criminals. Is that what you think, Alfred?"

"Stranger things have happened."

"Well, I think theres something more going on here and I'm going to find out what it is."

Bruce waved a stack of papers in his hand. "I managed to track down a current address for everyone except Two-Face. Starting tomorrow I'm going to pay a little visit to our former friends and get the answers I'm looking for."

"Whatever you say Master Bruce, but I wonder if your looking a gift-horse in the mouth. All this peace and quiet might have made you restless, but it's done wonders for my blood pressure."

"We'll see about that...uh, the gift-horse thing, Alfred, not your blood pressure," Bruce said as he looked at the at the sheet of paper on the top of the pile.

Let's see what Poison Ivy's been up to.


	2. Poison Ivy

The address he'd found for Poison Ivy ended up being in a suburb just south of Gotham called Fragrant Falls (which actually did smell quite nice). It was easy finding her house. All he'd had to do was look for the place with the biggest garden out front. He waited til' dusk and then discreetly parked the batmobile in a small section of woods before making his way over to the house.

As he approached the garden, he realized he should really be careful considering what always seemed to happen when you got close enough to something planted by Poison Ivy.

It was then that that he felt something wrap around his ankles.

Too late.

"Ah!"

He began to reach towards his belt, but before he could, a pair of vines caught each of his hands as the first one dragged him up so that he was hanging upside-down.

Well, at least he knew he was at the right house.

He was just about to think of a way out when a young red-headed child wearing a cowboy outfit appeared in front of him. The child looked at him quizzically for a moment, and then took out a toy pistol and aimed it at him.

"Bang! Bang!" the child shouted. He giggled hysterically for a few seconds and then started running circles around Batman while shouting 'Bang! Bang!' over and over again and pretending to fire the gun at him.

"Look, kid, do you think you could go get your Mother for me? I'd really like to get down from here."

The kid stopped running and grinned at him. "No way, your my hostage now!"

"Let him go, you dirty outlaw!"

Suddenly, a little girl with black hair who was dressed like a sheriff, leapt out from behind the bushes.

"Try and make me, Harleen!" the boy shouted.

"You have to let him go, or I'll arrest you."

Great, maybe the girl could be reasoned with.

"Hey, little girl," he yelled to her, "could you please go get your mother!"

The girl turned to him and frowned. "Shutup, were trying to play and you're ruining it!" she whined.

Or maybe not.

Then, a third child, this one younger than the other two and with black hair, came running out of the house.

"I wanna play to! I wanna play to!" he cried.

"Go away, _Hardly_," the girl sneered, "I told you you're too little to play with us."

"Excuse me, little boy," Batman tried to get the third Child's attention.

"You have to let me play with you or I'll tell Mommy on you!"

The girl just crossed her arms and spit out her tongue. The younger child spit his tongue out and turned towards the house.

"Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!"

The front door of the house was flung open and the Poison Ivy appeared, carrying a baby in her arms.

"Kids, what is all the commotion out here! Can't you even get along for a couple of min-" It was then that she noticed the creature of the night himself, surrounded by three of her children and being held captive by her garden plants.

"Well, well, well," she said, smirking, as she came right up to him.

"Batman! It's been so long. You've aged terribly."

"You know him, Mommy?" the girl asked.

"Of course I do! What, you kids have never heard of the legendary Batman?"

"No," the older boy replied.

Batman frowned. Stupid punk kids and their music.

"So how have you been?" Ivy, not at all sarcastically, asked.

"Look, not that I don't want to get reacquainted, but do you think you could get me down from here first?"

"Oh, alright."

* * *

A couple of minutes later he was sitting in Poison Ivy's kitchen, while her children hyperactively ran, and screamed and pulled each others hair, and the younger boy decided it would be a good idea to blow his nose on his cape. He also discovered that Ivy had yet another child (the twin of the baby she'd been holding earlier).

"Mommy!" the aforementioned boy whined, tugging at his mothers pant leg. She and Batman were seated across from one another at the dining table.

"What is it, precious?"

"Mommy, they wouldn't let me play with them and Harleen called me Hardly!"

"Now Hardy, what did we say about Tattle-Tales?" Ivy ruffled the the boy's hair as she chastised him.

"Snitches get stitches," the boy answered dejectedly.

"That's right."

Batman shot her a dirty look and she smiled back at him.

"So, what brings you to my humble abode?" Ivy asked.

"I came to see what you've been up to," Batman said. "Actually, what all of you have been up to. You just happened to live the closest."

"As I'm sure you've realized, Gotham's been very quiet for, say, the past five years, and I've been able to attribute that to the sharp decrease in the level of, well, bizarre crimes. The kind you, and Joker, Riddler, Two-Face, and the others used to be the main perpetuators of."

Ivy rolled her eyes. "That's why you came here? Geez, Batman, do you just like having things to complain about? The crime rate in Gotham goes down and you have to see a problem with it."

"My problem isn't that there's less crime in Gotham, it's how suspicious it is that most of Gotham's most notorious criminals stopped committing crimes at the exact same time."

"Look," Ivy started, "if you really want to know what happened, it's simple. We all got together and had a meeting and decided that it was just all too much trouble and agreed to reform right there. Nobody ever changed their mind and now we all have normal jobs and luckily, either people don't notice that we used to be criminals or they don't care."

"And you expect me to believe that? In case you don't remember, Poison Ivy, we've been in this situation before. You lived in a nice suburban house just like this one, were a loving mother and from all appearances you were completely reformed and living a normal life."

"I know what happened in the past, and I suppose you have no reason to believe anything I say, but, I'm telling the truth. I'm done with crime. Both me and my husband have been done with crime for years and have no intention of going back," she said.

"Would you like to stay for dinner?"

"Husband?" Batman said quizzically. "Your husband was a criminal too? Was he anyone I've-"

He was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening.

Harleen stopped giving her younger brother a noogie and started to jump up and down. "Daddy's home!" she screamed happily.

Batman turned around to look at who was standing in the doorway and swore he felt his jaw hit the floor.

"Harvey?"

Sure enough, it was the two-faced one himself that stood there.

"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!" All three kids shouted as they jumped onto their father and clung their grubby little hands onto his white and black suit.

"Ahh! Get these little brats off of me!" Two-Face shouted angrily as he frantically tried to shake his children off of him.

"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!" The kids continued to yell as they clung harder.

"I swear if you demonic hell spawn don't get off of me right now-"

That went on for awhile with Two-Face shouting threats and his children clinging lovingly to him until he managed to summon enough force to fling the three of them off of his body. However it wasn't over as Hardy quickly recovered and attached himself to Two-Face's leg.

"I love you Daddy," Hardy said as he beamed up at his father.

"I SAID GET OFF OF ME!"

_FLING_ The child was tossed clear across the room.

When it was finally all over, Ivy went up to greet her husband.

"Welcome home, Honey."

"Is dinner ready yet?"

"I love you too," she said and kissed the good side of his mouth. "You'll never guess whose here."

She led him into the kitchen where Batman was currently trying to regain his ability to form speech after what had just transpired before him.

"What the Hell is he doing here?" Two-Face demanded.

"Why do you think? Because he's a Suspicious Aloysius with too much time on his hands. And he's staying for dinner."

"No, he isn't."

"Of course he is. Batman's our guest tonight and maybe if we prove we can be civil to him of all people, Mr. Self-Righteous will believe we really have reformed."

"Fine, whatever, what's for dinner?"

"Why, a delicious salad of course," Ivy said, as she put a plate full of salad in front of him.

"Again." Two-Face grimaced, "God, I can't remember the last time I've eaten meat. What is with you Ive?"

"But salad is so much healthier, Batman agrees, don't you Batman? Batman? Harv, could you pinch him or something, I think he's having an episode."

Two-Face opened one of the kitchen drawers and took out a carving knife.

"With pleasure."

That quickly knocked the composure back into Batman.

"That's okay, I'm fine," Batman said as he stood up to take a seat at the opposite end of the table from Two-Face.

* * *

_**Later, during dinner**_

"So, Harv, how was work at the office today?" Ivy asked.

"Soul-crushing."

"Hey, you know what," she said, clasping her hands together, "Batman hasn't been introduced to the whole family yet, have you Batman?"

"I don't believe I have," Batman answered. He was currently sandwiched between the two oldest kids who were apparently going to spend the entire meal throwing carrots at each other.

"Well, the two your sitting between are our first twins, Harleen and Harvey Jr. and our other son here is Hardy."

The little boy waved to him from across the table and he awkwardly waved back.

"And our other twins are our little baby girls-"

"Let me guess, Harriet and Harmony."

"No, Daffodil and Ruellia."

"Oh, of course."

"It's interesting that you had two sets of twins, considering, you know," Batman said, trying not to look directly at Two-Face.

Ivy sighed. "Yeah, if only they all could've been twins."

Hardy looked sadly into his salad and Batman felt horrible for a second for even bringing it up.

Suddenly, the babies started crying in the other room.

"Oh, Daffo and Elli must be hungry again. Somebody's gonna have to go feed them," Ivy said.

"I wanna feed Daffo and Elli! I wanna feed Daffo and Elli!" Hardy yelled.

Ivy got a bottle from the refrigerator and handed it to Harvey Jr.

"Harvey Jr. go feed your sisters."

"Okay."

Hardy pouted and crossed his arms. "You never let me do anything."

"Well, that's what you get for not being born a twin. You know how we feel about odd numbers in this household," Ivy said.

"My drink appears to be poisoned," Batman suddenly announced.

"Don't be silly, I haven't poisoned anyone in years," Ivy replied.

"Right, and yet, there appears to be a white, powdery substance stuck to the inside of my glass," Batman said as he pointed to the rim of his glass and narrowed his eyes at Ivy.

Ivy grabbed the glass from his hand and examined it, then angrily looked back at the tables occupants.

"What is the meaning of this? What has Mommy always said about powder-based poisons, hmm?"

"It's for trailer trash," Harleen, Hardy, and Harvey Jr. (who had returned already so he could be in this part of the story) muttered in unison.

"Right, it's for trailer trash and we are not trailer trash, does this look like a trailer park to you!" Ivy yelled, slamming the glass down on the counter.

The kids shook their heads.

"Now fess up! I want to know whose responsible for bringing this trash into my house!"

"I bet it was _Hardly_," Harvey Jr. said.

"It was not, you always blame me for everything. It had to be you or Harleen!"

"It wasn't me," Harleen said, "Only Harvey Jr. would be dumb enough to do something like that."

"I didn't do it!" Harvey Jr. yelled, "I bet you did it, you two-bit skank!"

"Hey," Two-Face growled as he slammed his fist into the table. "Don't call your sister that."

Batman, who up until that point had been horrified at everything about Two-Face and Poison Ivy's family life, was pleasantly surprised by Two-Face's outburst. Maybe, the child-flinging incident aside, he actually had enough sanity left to-

"We do not use the number two in an insulting manner in this house!"

Or maybe not.

"You know Ivy," Batman started, "don't think you've gotten out of giving me an explanation for you and your friends sudden switch to the right side of the law."

"I did give you an explanation. Whether you want to believe it or not is up to you, but that's all I have to tell because it's the truth."

"And you could be a little more sensitive. It hasn't been an easy transition for me to make. Not all of us like Harv, here spent our entire lives as goody-two-shoes and can do it with no problem."

Two-face jammed his fork into the wooded table. "Don't even start Ivy."

"Or what?" she said, smirking. "You're all talk Harvey. 'I want to strangle you' 'I want to hit you with a truck' But you never actually do anything."

She turned to Batman. "You know, he's still such a boy-scout underneath, that he would never touch a woman, even now, no matter how much he wanted to."

Two-Face scowled and crossed his arms. "I knew I should've married Red Claw."

"Oh please, Red Claw's a raging carpet-muncher and you know it."

"You're one to talk, what about you and Harley? You think I never figured out what went on between you two?"

"That was only because Harley was the only one in our demented little circle who knew what she was doing," Ivy muttered.

"What's that supposed to mean!" Two-Face demanded.

"I mean Harley was a much better s-uh" Ivy looked at the children and reconsidered her phrasing, "Uh, kisser than you ever were!"

"Well maybe I could kiss you better if I wasn't so worried that you were always trying to poison me!" He yelled, standing up and banging his fist against the table.

Batman looked around the table and noticed that none of kids were reacting to there parents argument. They carried on eating their meals and goofing off, like they were oblivious to it. Were they just completely used to this by now?

"Would you quit bringing that up! God, how many times did I actually do that, like ten? Can't you just forgive and forget already!"

"Forgive and forget? You tried to killed me over a rose!"

Harleen looked up at her mother. "You tried to kill Daddy?"

"A long time ago, sweetie," Ivy said, patting the child on the head. "You see, before Mommy and Daddy fell in love and got married-"

"You mean before the Joker spiked our drinks at Scarecrow's Halloween party and I woke up next to the arch-succubus of Gotham the next morning and nine months later you showed up at the door of my abandoned warehouse looking like the Goodyear blimp," Two-Face muttered under his breath.

Batman glanced around the table and-Yeah, still no reaction from the kids. He was starting to worry. More.

Ivy cleared her throat. "As I was saying," she continued, "Mommy and Daddy didn't like each other very much. In fact we didn't get along at all. But then we got to know each other and that's why we have the beautiful, loving relationship we have now, right Harv?"

Two-Face glared at her for a few seconds before lacing his fingers together and solemnly looking downward.

"Every night when I'm laying in bed beside you," he began, "and your smooth back is illuminated by the moonlight coming through the curtains or I can feel your warm breath on the back of my neck," he went on "the only thing that keeps me from_ smothering you to death with a pillow_, is that I really, _really_, don't want to go back to Arkham."

Batman buried his face into his hand and desperately tried to pretend that he was someplace else.

"Mommy, what's a succubus?" Harvey Jr. asked.

"A succubus is something Daddy's call Mommy's when Daddy's don't want to take responsibility for their actions," Ivy said, narrowing her eyes at Two-Face.

"Hey, don't talk to me about responsibility!" Two-Face shouted, "Who the Hell uses herbal birth control anymore!"

"I'm not giving those environmentally irresponsible pharmaceutical companies my money," Ivy huffed, crossing her arms.

"Mommy, what's birth control?"

"You know what," Batman said, standing up, "I think it's about time for me to leave."

"You see what you did, Ive!" Two-Face yelled, standing up and banging his fist against the table (again). "This always happens, whenever we have someone over, they always end up wanting to take off early because of you!"

"Because of me!" Ivy shouted disbelievingly. "He's leaving because he can't stand to be around you, you keyed-up psycho!"

"You know what, never mind," Batman said, throwing up his hands and quickly sitting back down. He looked at the non-existent watch on his wrist. "I didn't realize it was still this early. I don't have to be...at that...other place I have be tonight yet."

Ivy looked at her watch. "It is getting late though," She looked at the children. "Okay kids, who wants to feed the flesh-eating plants tonight?"

Hardy jumped up and began wildly waving his hand around. "I wanna feed the flesh eating plants! I wanna feed the flesh eating plants!"

"Hmm...Harleen! Why don't you do it tonight?"

"Okay Mom."

Hardy swiped his plate and glass to the floor, then slumped back into his chair and pouted.

"And why don't you take our guest with you," Ivy said, pulling a plate of raw steaks out of the refrigerator.

Two-Face looked at her and rolled his eyes. "Why do the flesh-eating plants get meat? Haven't had meat in five years," he grumbled under his breath.

"You know, I think I will go with you Harleen," Batman said, standing up and taking the plate from Ivy and then quickly ushering the girl out the front door. At this point, he'd be willing to do anything to get away from Mr. and Mrs. Face before another uncomfortable argument broke out.

"So, how are we supposed to feed these things anyway?" Batman asked the little girl.

Harleen gave him a 'boy-aren't-you-dumb' look and then put two fingers in her mouth and whistled.

Out of the garden a gigantic flower-like plant sprang open and Harleen took one of the steaks and threw it into the plants, uh, mouth.

"Simple enough," he said. "Uh, do your neighbors ever ask about this, I mean, theres people right across the street?"

The girl nodded. "Yeah, but no one believes them, especially not the stupid cops, so we can get away with anything, hahahaha!"

Batman grimaced. He'd heard a lot of evil laughs in his day, but somehow, that one was the most disturbing.

The little girls expression then changed and she began to pout. "But this one time, Abigail Barrera's little brother was playing with my little brother and he accidentally got eaten all up," she said.

"That's awful!" Batman said, mortified.

"Quiet! I didn't even get to the bad part," she whined. "When her Mom and Dad found out about it, they wouldn't let me play with her anymore, and Abigail's family has a pool in their backyard!"

That's it, he was getting out of there.

Batman picked up the plate and threw the remaining steaks at the plant and then took the girls hand and lead her back inside the house.

"Yeah, it turns out I'm gonna be leaving now after all," Batman said, as he met Two-Face and Ivy in the living room.

"Good riddance," Two-Face said, causing Ivy to elbow him in the ribs.

"Harvey! You know we don't speak to other people like that in front of them anymore. You wait til' he leaves."

"And you," she said, turning to Harleen, "It's time for you and your brothers to go to bed."

"We should do this again sometime," Ivy said to him.

"No, I don't think we will," Batman whispered as he walked out the door.

"Kids, it's time for bed!" He heard Ivy call, "Come here and say goodnight to your father!"

"Goodnight Daddy!"

"Ahh! Get them off! I swear to God, I will drop each and every one of you off at the orphanage!"

Batman shuddered as he walked back to the batmobile. Despite what Ivy had told him he still didn't think he had the answers he'd come looking for, but there was no way in Hell he was ever going back in that house.

Maybe he'd have better luck with Harley.


	3. Harley Quinn

Batman stepped off the elevator and made his way down the hall until he came to the door he was looking for. He was a little worried about his meeting with Harley that day, but assured himself that nothing could be worse than the night he'd spent at Poison Ivy and Two-Face's house.

**Dr. Harleen Quinzel, Psychiatry**

How Harley managed to get a job as a psychiatrist again was beyond him. He would think that she'd be the last person anyone would go to for psychiatric help, but here she was with her own practice.

He opened the door and went into the room. Surprisingly, there seemed to be nothing unusual about it. It looked like an ordinary doctors office. He went up to the front desk where there was a teenage girl chewing gum and filing her nails, who he guessed was the secretary or receptionist.

"Excuse me," he said to the girl. "I have a meeting with Dr. Quinzel."

"Name please," she said boredly.

"Uh, Batman," he said.

She picked up a clipboard. "B-A-T-M-A-N?"

"Yes."

"You can go right in," she said, pointing to the door to Harley's office.

"You speak English really well," the girl said.

"What?"

"So what country are you from? Is that some sort of ancestral folk costume you're wearing?"

"I'd love to chat, but I don't want to keep the doctor waiting," Batman said dryly, as he walked over to Harley's office door.

Stupid punk kids.

"Hello?" he said, opening the door and seeing the back of a chair behind a desk.

The chair immediately swiveled around.

She looked exactly the way she did in old photographs he'd seen of her while she was still a doctor at Arkham. Her hair was pulled up and she wore glasses and a white coat.

"B-Man! It's really you!" Harley exclaimed.

"Hello, Miss Quinn, or should I say, Miss Quinzel," he said. "I have to say I was surprised to find you working as a psychiatrist again. Given your background, I would have thought it was impossible for you to ever go back to this profession again."

"Actually if you can believe it, that's the whole reason so many patients come to me," Harley said.

"How so?"

"Because, B-Man, I went so far off the deep end as far as my sanity was concerned, that the fact that I was able to pull myself back together has made people think I have some great secret to getting back your mental health. I was so messed up that they think 'Hey, if Harley can do it, then so can I' and so they come to me and ask me what I did."

"So this is all one big scam," Batman said.

"What do you mean!" Harley asked, incredulously.

"You pretending that you have the magical key to sanity and charging people for telling them what it is."

"It is not a scam," Harley said, crossing her arms. "As a matter of fact, I do have the key to sanity, and I'm so sorry, if you happen to think that I don't genuinely want to help people get through the same thing I did."

"I might be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I want you to answer something for me first."

"What's that? Oh wait, my phones ringing."

Harley picked up her phone and addressed the person on the other line.

"Dr. Quinzel speaking. Went insane? I'll mend your brain!"

"Hmm, yes, night terrors, yes, sleepwalking, fear of buttered toast, okay, I'll transfer you over to my secretary and she'll set up an appointment."

Harley pressed a button on the phone and then hung up and looked back at him.

"Sorry, what were you going to say?"

"It's about you and Gothams other super criminals, you see-"

"Excuse me, I have another call." She picked up the phone again. "Dr. Quinzel speaking. Lost your sanity? I'll fix it up handily!"

"Alright then-over identification with snails, slimy sensation all over your body, strong desire to burn down the Morton Salt headquarters. Okay, I'll have you talk to my secretary to set up an appointment."

"Look, Harley, the thing I wanted to asked about is-Do you hear voices?" Batman asked suddenly.

"That can be a sign of schizophrenia," Harley replied.

"No, I mean, I think I hear people yelling in another room," he said.

_"What I'm saying is, he drives me crazy. For crying out loud, he can't even decide which brand of fabric softener to buy at the store without flipping a coin!"_

_"You shrill, red-headed, harpy! I drive you crazy? I'm always late for work because you insist on using homemade biofuel instead of gasoline and the damn car keeps breaking down!"_

_"Well, excuse me for caring about our planet!"_

"Those voices sound incredibly familiar," Batman said.

"Yeah, they sound familiar to me too," Harley said. "There's a marriage counselor in the neighboring office. Maybe we've met the couple somewhere."

"Could you wait a sec, I've got another call," Harley said picking up the phone again. "Dr. Quinzel speaking. Seduced into crime and madness by a crazy man called the Joker? I'll help your troubled mind and clear that mess, I'm so sure."

"Vivid hallucinations, you say? Crab people, underpants gnomes, a giant mechanized Barbra Streisand. Oh my! You better come in as soon as possible. I'll put you on with my secretary and she'll make an appointment."

Harley put down the phone and smiled smugly at Batman. "You see, people trust my psychiatric skills so much that they would come all the way from Colorado for my help."

"But what about your results? If you've helped so many people, you could provide me with a list of names of people who would vouch for you," Batman said.

"These things take time," Harley said with a shrug. She then narrowed her eyes. "I swear to God, Batman, I only have the best intentions and if you try to shut me down, I still keep my costume from the old days for sentimental value, and if I find out that polite society won't accept even when I try to be good, I'll just give up and go back to heists!"

She seems really genuine, Batman thought, but he still couldn't shake his conviction that there was something really fishy going on.

"So whatever it is you came you for, spill it, cause' I've got a group therapy session starting about right now I need to get to," she said.

"I wanted to ask why you and the gang from Arkham have been MIA for the past five years," Batman said. "You have to realize, it's seems very suspicious."

"Oh, that. Well, we all got together and had a meeting and-"

"Don't give me that thing about the meeting. You expect me to believe that? Why would you all just give up at once?"

Harley sighed. "Okay, the truth is...none of us ever liked you."

"Yeah, I figured that out."

"And that's why we all decided to stop. You're a total killjoy, B-Man. Like, whenever we would invite you to parties, you would spend the whole night telling us not to drink and smoke and to put our pants back on. So we decided to avoid you and not hang out with you anymore or even say "Hi" in the hallway. We were gonna make Two-Face tell you, because he was president of the student council, but in the end we decided not to because we thought it would hurt your feelings too much."

"Hurt...my feelings." Batman shook his head. "You're not making sense, I don't believe you."

"Well, didn't you wonder why no one ever signed your yearbook?"

"What yearbook?"

"You didn't get one, I thought we all got one?"

"What are you talking about!"

Harley looked at her watch. "Look at the time, I'm gonna be late."

"So, Batman, if you're want you know if I get results with my patients, then why don't you sit in on my group therapy session?"

Batman was about to decline, but decided that he actually was curious about Harley's psychiatric methods.

"Sure, why not," he said.

Harley led him out of her office and into another room across the hall. When she opened the door, they found a group of men and women sitting in chairs in a circle.

"Good afternoon, everybody!" she said cheerfully.

"Good afternoon, Dr. Quinzel," the group chorused.

"Well, today's group therapy session is going to be extra special today because we have a guest joining us. Everyone say good afternoon to the dark knight of Gotham City, Batman!"

"Good afternoon, Batman."

"Batman, why don't you take the empty seat between Frankie, the manic depressive, obsessive compulsive and Norma, the narcissistic, schizoaffective, parasomniac."

Batman looked around the circle and seeing that there was only one open seat, went and sat down in it.

"Okay people," Harley began "today were going to try an exercise that will hopefully help you deal with your stress, anger, and all those other nasty emotions contributing to poor mental health."

"It's important that you have a safe non-threatening way to get these emotions out of your system so that they don't manifest themselves in unhealthy ways, like say, making you want to rob a bank, or blow up a city, or, I don't know, throw your loving, loyal, and endlessly forgiving girlfriend out of a window!"

She smiled. "Anyway, that's what were going to be doing today."

Harley went into a closet and emerged carrying a large object that made Batman feel quite nervous all of the sudden.

A giant, inflatable...clown.

Harley placed the clown in the middle of the circle and began to explain what that day's exercise was going to be.

"This is an inflatable pop bag," she said, giving it a playful shove, "Some of you may have had one as children. It may have given you innumerable nightmares, and caused you to develop an intense resentment towards your oblivious parents that lingers on to this day."

"Now pay attention, because I'm going to demonstrate how this works, and once I'm finished, each of you are going to come up here and do exactly as I showed you."

"You're going to pretend that this pop bag is the source of all your anger and frustration," she said.

Harley reached into her pockets and took out some scotch tape and a glamor shot of the Joker, and taped the photograph to the clowns face.

"Then, you're going to physically attack your problems by savagely assaulting them, until your too tired and worn out to care anymore."

"Uh, Miss Quinzel?" Batman asked.

"No questions until the demonstration is over," she said dismissivley.

"Yeah, but I just don't see how this could possibly help anyone deal with their emotions. If anything wouldn't it just lead people to thinking violent aggression is the cure to their problems."

"Let's begin the demonstration!" Harley shouted, completely ignoring him.

She hauled back and decked the picture of the Joker's face, causing the clown doll to swing backward and then forwards to be quickly decked again.

"After everything I've done for you! After all the laughing gas bombs I painstakingly hand-made. After all the money I spent on Kabuki makeup. After all the bullets I had to dodge, and fish I had to eat. And this is how you repay me! Well let's see how you like it!" she screamed as she continued to pummel it.

Well, at least she seems to finally see him for what he really is, Batman thought. It looked like she may have finally gotten over the Joker for good.

"And to think I learned how to sew just so I could repair all the tears in your tacky purple suit!"

She hit the doll one more time and then simply stared at the photograph for a few seconds. She started to sniffle.

Or maybe not.

Oh no, Batman thought. Don't Harley. Don't do it. Fight it!

"Oh Puddin'!" she cried as she took the dolls head in her hands. "I could never stay mad at you."

"I'm so sorry I overreacted. Can you ever forgive me, Mistah J?" she said, caressing the edge of the photograph.

"Oh, what's that?" she said, putting her ear up to the pictures mouth. "You're sorry too? That makes me so happy! Let's never fight again!"

Harley threw her arms around the inflatable clown and squeezed it.

"Oh?" she said again, putting her ear back to the picture. "You want to do it here? Right now? But everybody's watching," Harley said, looking around the room.

"What's that? You can't wait. You need to take your wonderful goddess of court jesters now? Then take me! Take me my love! My Puddin'!"

Harley crushed her lips to the ones on the Jokers photograph and began furiously making out with the Joker-faced inflatable pop bag, as they fell to the floor in a tangle of limbs and plastic.

"Uh, Dr. Quinzel," said a guy who had been scribbling down notes, "Do we have to do this part too? Dr. Quinzel?"

Another guy awkwardly raised his hand. "Excuse me. I think I need an adult."

"You are an adult," said Norma, the narcissistic, schizoaffective, parasomniac.

Batman might have stepped in earlier, but was too busy doing some math in his head. According to his calculations, this had been the 349th, no, the 353rd time he'd been scarred for life. 87 (now 88) of which involved Harley Quinn.

Deeply unsatisfied with those numbers, he got out of his chair and yanked Harley off of the doll.

Harley regained her composure and began laughing nervously. "Well now that you've how it's done, it's time for one of you to come up here and give it try. Who wants to go first?" she asked.

No one answered.

"Oh, come on," Harley said as she looked around the room. When her eye's fell on Batman, a light-bulb went on in her head.

"I know! Batman, why don't you try it?"

"I don't think so," Batman said. "I'm just here to observe and I already told you, I don't see how this method of 'therapy' could possibly help anyone."

"You should!" Harley exclaimed, pulling the pop bag off of the floor and straightening out the photograph. "You and Mistah J had so much animosity towards each other, I'm sure this would help you to exorcize some of your feelings towards him."

I know it helped me," she said blissfully. "And besides, you always seemed to like to punching things."

Batman thought about it for a second. "Okay, but I'm only going to do it so I can honestly tell all your patients here that this won't be beneficial to them at all."

Batman went and stood in front of the doll so that he was face to face with the Jokers picture. He frowned as he realized that just looking at it caused a swell of anger in him. He looked so smug, with his lips stretching into a smile of inhuman proportions. A gleam in his eyes, like he'd just pushed a nun into oncoming traffic and then kicked her puppy.

It had been five years since he'd even seen him, but it all came flooding back to him instantly. All those people he'd killed. All the misery he'd caused. All those times he'd sang that stupid jingle bells song about him.

_'Jingle bells, Batman smells'_ I'll show him who smells! Batman thought.

"I take a shower everyday!" Batman yelled.

"Ummmm, okay...that's nice" he heard Harley say.

Oops. He must have said that out loud.

"Now Batman," Harley, "I want you to pretend that this doll is the Joker. Just take all the negative feelings you've ever had about him and project them onto it. Then you know what what I want you to do, Batman?" she asked, putting up her fists. "I want you to punch, punch, punch all those feelings into oblivion."

"Now go ahead," she said, gesturing to the clown. "Tell him how he made you feel."

God, this is stupid, Batman thought. But still, if he wanted to prove how dumb this was, he had to play along.

"It made me angry that you would ruin so many peoples lives just for your own twisted sense of fun, you vile, cretinous-"

"Hey!" Harley shouted. "Don't insult my Puddin'! Why I oughta...uh, sorry, force of habit. Continue!"

"You make me sick," Batman said, taking his first swing at the inflatable doll. "I hope the reason you disappeared is because you accidentally locked yourself inside a freezer full of your cyanide pies and starved to death, and then your hyenas broke down the door and feasted on your corpse-"

"Woah, dude!" one of patients exclaimed.

Batman started punching harder and harder.

"Go to Hell, you psychotic clown! Go to the Hell of clowns! Where the Hell Walmart is always out of whoopee cushions, and Pennywise and the Killer Klowns from Outer Space, and John Wayne Gacy will tear out your throat so you can't ever laugh again!"

Batman then ripped off the dolls head and knocked it to the ground where he continued to thrash it until it deflated completely.

"Batman, no!" shouted the note-taking guy. "Stop, you're going to kill it!"

"It's already dead!" someone else yelled, sobbing uncontrollably, "It's already dead!"

"Oh, and I forgot, the Insane Clown Posse!" Batman yelled, ignoring the obvious horror of the patients. "And their mass army of Juggalos to make rolling papers out of your entrails. Because being smoked by a Juggalo is the only fate that's good enough for you, Joker!"

"Uh, Batman," Harley said, sheepishly, "I think you should stop now, in fact, since you just destroyed my pop bag, I'm going to have to cancel the rest of today's session."

Batman suddenly realized what he was doing, unhanded the doll, and slowly stood up.

"Sorry," he said, breathing heavily. "I guess I lost control there for a minute."

"It's okay," Harley said, sympathetically, patting him on the back.

"Well, uh, class dismissed," she said to her patients.

"I thought these sessions were supposed to help us," Norma said to Frankie, while they were filing out the door. "Do you feel any more sane?"

"If anything, I think I feel even more unstable than when I came in today," Frankie said.

"Oh well," said Norma, "I'm glad I at least got to meet Batman."

"Really? Personally, I'm incredibly disillusioned right now. I think this is what they mean when they say you should never meet your heroes."

"Come back and visit me, sometime!" Harley yelled out the window, as Batman was getting into the batmobile to leave.

What a nightmare, he thought. Somehow, he'd jinxed karma, or whatever, and managed to have a worse time than he had the other day. He could hear Alfred's warning about not looking a gift horse in the mouth ringing in his ears. He still wasn't giving up yet though. The explanation Harley had given just hadn't added up. He still had Scarecrow, Riddler, Joker, Killer Croc, Peguin, and Mad Hatter to talk to. Maybe he could get something out of one of them.


	4. Scarecrow

"We're meeting Scarecrow at an old, abandoned, high school?" Robin asked, as he stared at the building in front of him. "I don't know, Batman, this has 'set-up' written all over it."

"Well, this is where his agent said we could find him."

"Agent?"

"He directs horror movies, now."

"Seriously? Huh, figures."

"Still, if there is something going on, it'll be good to have you with me. And if not, well, if it ends up being as bad as my last two experiences, it'd be nice to have some moral support."

"Wait, why am I just coming with you now, and not the first two times?"

"Because the author forgot you existed."

"Oh."

"So, Dick-uh, Tim...wait a minute, which one are you supposed to be, Dick Grayson or Tim Drake?"

"I'm Tim Drake."

"Oh...well, the author's barely seen any of the The New Adventures series since she was in elementary school, so...like, can't you just pretend to be Dick Grayson?"

"No!"

"Okay, fine, but don't complain if you're written out of character."

"Whatever, let's go," Robin said, as he and Batman began walking toward the building. Suddenly, a blood-curdling scream could be heard from one of the windows.

Robin turned to Batman. "You said he directed horror movies right?"

Batman nodded. "Yeah, but this is the Scarecrow we're talking about. We can't be sure that person's just acting. Come on."

They rushed into the building, and up the stairs, towards the direction of where the scream had come from. Batman turned to Robin while they were running down the darkened hallway. "I think it came from over here-oof." Batman stumbled back to see a very frightened looking girl standing in front of him. The girl then promptly began screaming at the top of her lungs.

"Ma'am, don't worry I'm here to help you!" Batman said as he grabbed her shoulders. "Where's Scarecrow? Has he done anything to you?"

The girl stopped screaming and instead looked very confused.

"Cut!" a voice yelled.

The lights came up and Batman saw that they weren't alone in the hallway. Along with a camera crew, the Scarecrow, wearing a miffed expression, was impatiently tapping a bullhorn against his chair.

"Chad, Wiley, what are doing? You two aren't in this scene!" he yelled.

"Who are Chad and Wiley?" Robin asked.

"Can I have a glass of water? I've been screaming my lungs out all day and now my throat hurts," the girl croaked out.

"Would you quit asking for water!" the Scarecrow yelled. "This is a horror movie, godammit, if you don't have tonsillitis by the end of the shoot, then you're not trying hard enough!"

"Ugh, whatever," she said. "Then I quit. I'm not putting up with this shit anymore."

"I'm surrounded by amateurs!" Scarecrow shouted, throwing up his hands. "Gretchen!" he yelled, "Get me another understudy!"

"Sorry, Jonathan, but we're all out of actresses. Emily was the last one," replied his assistant.

Scarecrow shook his head. "Fine, well just cobble together the rest of her performance from pre-existing footage later. That's what we did on 'Spring Break at Cannibal Beach 2' and it turned out alright."

"If you say so," Gretchen said skeptically.

"And you, Chad and Wiley," he said, looking at Batman and Robin, "since you're here let's shoot the scene where Batman suffocates the Paul character to death by shoving his cape down his throat and then Robin carves the next clue in his chest with a batarang while the ghost of the murderous ex-principal watches in the same bunny pajamas Paul was wearing when, as a child, he walked in on the zombie version of former soviet premier Vladimir Lenin having sex with his great-grandmother." He looked back to Gretchen. "The guy who play's Paul hasn't quit yet, has he?"

"Not yet," she said.

"Excellent, excellent," Scarecrow said. "Alright, come on people, we're behind schedule as it is and-"

"Listen, straw head, we're not Chad and Wiley," Robin interrupted. "We're the real Batman and Robin."

"Very funny, guys" the Scarecrow laughed. "Prove it."

"Once, when we were transporting you to Arkham in the batmobile, you got affected by your own fear toxin and thought the steering wheel was trying to rape you," Batman said.

The Scarecrows face fell and he immediately turned back to the crew. "Uh, I have to take care of something right now, everyone go and set up the next scene," he told them.

"So, I take it you've come here because your unhappy with my choice of villains for my next movie?" Scarecrow asked them.

"Actually, no, I didn't even know that you were making a movie," Batman said, "but, well get to that later," he assured him.

"What is it you'd like to know?" Scarecrow asked, "Why I decided that scaring people with the power of cinema was a far more rewarding pursuit than using toxic chemicals?"

"Actually," Batman, "that's exactly what I wanted to know."

"The truth is, I always really wanted to make my own horror movie," he said. "I just never had a good enough idea for one. You see, the real reason I spent so much time coming up with ways to get people to give in to their fear was because I was looking for inspiration. I used to fill up notebooks upon notebooks with horror movie plots, but none of them were ever original or scary enough, but then it happened!" He pulled a script out of his back pocket and waved the pages at them, before clutching it to his heart.

"Once, I finally had my perfect idea, I spent months and months slaving over the script, and from then on I was determined to make it into a movie. Oh, sure I had to slog through directing straight-to-DVD fare and schlocky sequel after schlocky sequel, but those brainless studio execs finally realized I had gold on my hands!"

"So, uh, what is this 'masterpiece' of yours, with the totally original and scary plot?" Batman asked, genuinely curious.

"It's about six horny teenagers who sneak into a haunted abandoned high school, that was built over an Indian burial ground, that was built over a bowling alley, that was built over _another_ Indian burial ground, where they end up being stalked and killed off one by one by two masked madmen. I call it 'Night of the Batpocalypse'."

"That...sounds just like every slasher movie ever made," Robin said, dryly.

"No it doesn't," Scarecrow said, defensively.

"Yeah it does."

"No it isn't...but even if it isn't the most original idea in world, it's doesn't matter. The idea itself isn't important. It's the execution that matters." The Scarecrow shoved the script back into his pocket. "Now, speaking of 'execution' I believe I have a movie to shoot," he said as he began walking away from them.

"Wait a minute. There's still the matter of you using us for the villains in your movie," Batman reminded him.

"Hey, it doesn't say anywhere in the script that the killers are you two," Scarecrow said. "All slasher villains have disguises and the ones in my movie just happened to disguise themselves as you."

"Great," Batman said, "then you won't mind us sticking around to watch you filming."

"Of course not, follow me," Scarecrow said.

"Alright then, come along young Robin, we're going to see how movies get made!" Batman said, ruffling the kid's hair.

"You know that's why the other Robin quit don't you?" Robin asked, glaring at him.

* * *

"Who a-are you? W-what are you gonna do t-to me?" a 30-something actor playing one of the horny teens stuttered as Chad-Batman and Wiley-Robin advanced on him.

Chad-Batman grinned evilly as as he slowly approached him. "I am vengeance. I am the night. I am...GOING TO KILL YOU! Hahahahaha!"

"I object to this part," Batman said.

"Shush, you," Scarecrow said. "You're gonna ruin this take."

"Please don't hurt me! I'll do anything!" the actor said. "Oh no! You're gonna suffocate me by shoving your cape down my throat, aren't you?" he accused faux-Batman. The actor tried to run, but blocking his way was-Gasp! "Principal Everett? But you're...you're dead!"

"No, no, no!" Scarecrow yelled. "You call that looking scared? I want 'there's a guy wearing a Batman costume about to shove a cape down my throat' scared and you're giving me 'I think we might be all out of hostess cupcakes scared." Scarecrow put his head in hands. "Try it again," he demanded.

"Action!

"Please don't hurt me! I'll do anything!" the actor yelled again. "Oh no! You're-"

"No, no, no! That still isn't scared enough," Scarecrow screamed and began digging his hand into a box at his side labeled 'motivation'.

"You there!" he shouted to the actor he'd been berating. "Blonde haired actor person."

"My name is Jacob," the actor said, firmly.

"Yeah, I stopped bothering to remember your names five understudies ago," Scarecrow said. "What are you afraid of?"

"Well, when I was a little kid I once woke up to a rat chewing on the side of my face and-"

"Rats, rats," Scarecrow repeated as he searched around in his box. "Here!" he said as he pulled a live rat out and threw them into the guy's hair.

"Ah! Rat! Rat!" the guy screamed as he started wildly tearing at his hair.

"Scarecrow!" Batman admonished.

"It's going for my eyeball! Somebody help!"

"Well, how else am I supposed to get a good enough fear reaction out these people without using chemicals. Fear is only good enough for me if it's the real thing," Scarecrow said.

"Why isn't anybody doing anything!"

Scarecrow looked at the Director of Photography who was manning the camera behind him, "So, we got this one okay?" The DP nodded and gave him a thumbs up.

"Okay, I guess this scenes good enough as it is, let's shoot the next one."

"But you only shot one take," Batman pointed out.

"It's a very low budget production," Scarecrow said, "Very, very low budget."

The scene the Scarecrow had decided to shoot next was the one where the two girls hide from the killers in the boiler room where the Principal killed his entire family exactly three years ago that night after being possessed by the vengeful native American spirit of Chief Dances With Cliches. The DP was particularly excited about shooting this scene, because it reminded him of a scene in his favorite horror movie ever.

"Oh, I'm so excited!" he gushed to Scarecrow. "I want to film this scene so it's just like that one in 'The People Under the Stairs'. That's a totally underrated movie and in my humble, personal opinion, Wes Cravens very best movie ever!" he said excitedly.

However, this opinion incensed the Scarecrow. "How dare you say that," he said and reached his hand into his motivation box. He pulled out the first thing he touched, which was a giant tarantula, and hurled it at the DP.

"Ah! Spider!" the DP screamed.

"You tasteless, monkey-brained, pedestrian!" Scarecrow bellowed. "'A Nightmare on Elm St.' is by far Wes Cravens greatest film and I will not tolerate anyone saying otherwise." He pulled his box in front of him so he could have better access to his arsenal as his eyes darted around the room. "You, there" he shouted to one of the actresses. "What was Wes Cravens greatest film?"

"I don't know, The Hills Have Eyes?" the actress replied.

"Wrong answer!" he shouted, taking a boa constrictor out his box and hurling it at her.

"Ah! Snake!" she screamed.

"You!" he pointed at the other actress, "What was Wes Cravens greatest film?"

"Uh, Scream," she answered.

"Wrong again," he said. He threw the note the catering guy she had a crush on had written, saying he only liked her as a friend.

She read the note. "Oh no, how could you? You know how much I fear rejection!" she said, bursting into tears.

"Sorry," the catering guy said, shrugging.

"I'm getting pretty tired of this," Scarecrow said, turning to Batman.

"I know you want me to say 'A Nightmare on Elm St., but I'm not going to. Personally, I don't even like horror movies. I think their sadistic and I don't like the idea of human misery and suffering being used as entertainment," Batman said. He cleared his throat. "I, uh, did kind of like Paranormal Activity," he added sheepishly.

Scarecrow shook his head disapprovingly. "Tsk Tsk. That movie. You know, I don't understand what is is with these critics and their 'this movie is good because they don't show you the evil lurking in the shadows, they let you imagine the worst thing you can think of' nonsense."

"The monster should be right up in your face. It's not scary if you can't see it, godammit. It's a goddamn cop-out!" he screamed angrily. "Although," he said, "I have to admit I've always been a fan of the found footage genre itself. It adds a sense realism, that I've wanted to bring to my own films."

"That's it!" he shouted. "From now this movie is going to be a found-footage movie! Gretchen, go get my handheld camera!"

"Oh, and, you're all fired," he said to the camera crew.

"Awww," replied the camera crew.

Gretchen handed him the camera and then asked him a very good question. "Jonathan, do you really think we should be changing formats when we've shot the majority of the movie? It's not going to make any sense to the viewers if the movie is suddenly being shot by the protagonists with a handheld camera."

Scarecrow shrugged. "Don't worry, we'll try to make sense of it in editing. Maybe film a new scene where they find a camera in the AV Room. Just like we did with 'Vampire Machete Nuns 3'."

"We got nine Razzie nominations for that movie," she reminded him.

"Yeah, but we only won five of them."

Scarecrow gave the handheld camera to one of the actresses.

"Action!" he yelled.

Everyone looked at him, puzzled.

"Uh, what are we supposed to do now?" the girl with the camera asked.

Scarecrow rolled his eyes. "Just do the scene the way it was written originally, except shake the camera around a lot, zoom in and out for no reason, and keep yelling things like, 'We have to keep filming! We have to show the world what happened here!' over and over again. You know, like in all found footage movies."

"Action!"

The girl without the camera began screaming hysterically. "Oh my god! We're gonna die! This is all your fault for daring us to go to the abandoned high school!"

"Great, great," Scarecrow said, nodding, "Now, you have to keep saying things like, 'Why are you still filming? Put the fucking camera down!' about a million times."

"Why are you still filming? Put the fucking camera down!" the actress yelled.

"I can't, we have to show the world what happened here!" the actress with the camera yelled back. However she then paused and looked quizzically at Scarecrow.

"Um, Jonathan, why would she keep filming? It doesn't make any sense. I mean, if someone really was being chased around by a bunch of crazy killers, why wouldn't they just drop the camera and focus on trying to get away?"

Scarecrow sighed, "Because, then there'd be no footage for the movie. Of course it doesn't make any sense, the audience just has to use it's suspension of disbelief. Now keep yelling 'Why are you still filming' and 'We have to show people what happened' back and forth to each other. We don't have nearly enough of that yet and in my estimation, that exchange of dialogue happens approximately 131 times in the average found footage movie."

While the actresses the continued to shout cliche movie dialogue at each other, Batman decided he was getting pretty bored watching it and asked Robin for a dollar for the soda machine.

"But, Batman, you're a billionaire," Robin said.

"I'll pay you back."

"Fine," Robin sighed, giving him a dollar and sending him on his merry way.

Meanwhile, Scarecrow was once again, feeling that the actors in his movie were not giving 110% in the "pretending to be scared' department and called one of the actors who was not the scene over to help remedy the situation.

"Here," he said, pulling a clown mask out of his box, "I happen to know that that actress over is deathly afraid of clowns. Put this mask on and hide behind the boiler, then jump out and scare her."

The actor went and hid behind the boiler just as Batman was coming back from the soda machine with his drink.

"This is the worst day of my life," one of the actresses shouted, "We're being hunted down by two complete psychos, my boyfriend was strangled to death with Batman's utility belt, and YOU WONT PUT THAT FUCKING CAMERA DOWN!"

"But the world must know! We must show the world what-"

"Boogedy-Boogedy-Boo!" the clown-masked actor shouted as he jumped out from behind the boiler.

"Ah! Clown!" Batman screamed as he dropped his can of soda and lunged at the actor. He attacked the actor, pummeling his fists into his ugly clown face, while everyone screamed in horror.

"Oh my god! My face, my precious face. Please stop!" the actor yelled, as he managed to get in between Batman fists enough to pull off his clown mask. "Look," he said, "I'm not a real clown! I'm a human being!" he pleaded.

Batman regained his composure and helped the actor up. "I'm so sorry," Batman said, "it's just, I have this thing about clowns and..."

"It's okay, just...stay away from me!" the actor said, nervously backing away from Batman.

"Look, I'm really, really sorry," Batman tried to apologize.

"Yeah, yeah, you should be apologizing for ruining my shot," Scarecrow said. "Okay, people, let's get Chad and Wiley back in here so we can shoot the final scene where they break down the door and kill the two girls."

"I've got a really good feeling about how this movies gonna turn out," he said to Batman.

"I'm sure it will," Batman replied sarcastically.

"Oh yes, it's my first movie I've written and directed all on my own and I guarantee you, when it comes out the name Jonathan Crane is going to synonymous with Hitchcock, and 'Night of the Batpocalypse' will stand up as one of the great horror films of all time, alongside Psycho, The Exorcist, The Evil Dead, Ringu, A Tale of Two Sisters-"

"What about Friday the 13th?" Robin piped up.

Scarecrow stared condescendingly at him for a few seconds. "Don't even talk to me," he said, dismissiveley. "Besides, Sleepaway Camp was the far superior film in that 'Summer Camp horror' sub-genre."

"Is that the one where the main girl turns out to be a boy at the end?" one of the actors said.

Scarecrow reached into his box and whipped a Slenderman doll at his face. "No spoilers!"

Batman cringed and then felt a tap on his shoulder, turning around to find the actor who was playing him in the movie. Or, as the Scarecrow was trying to convince him, the actor who was playing someone merely dressed up as him.

"Hey there," Chad-Batman said, sipping a cup of coffee, "I just thought I'd come over and say 'Hi'. I've actually always wanted to meet you, seeing as how I've made quite a career for myself out of playing you."

"Nice to meet you," Batman said, "uh...so you 'play' me for a living. What do mean by that?"

"Well, this is my first legitimate production, but before this I did a lot of kids birthday parties, supermarket openings, but my main thing used to playing you in, ahem...'adult movies'.

"WHAT!" Batman yelled, horrified. "You mean 'adult films' of me exists? With you in them? Pretending to be me!"

Chad-Batman nodded casually. "Yeah, it's a huge genre. No pun intended, hahaha. I actually starred in an entire series called The Dark Knight: Ride his Steed. It's all about you going around, rescuing various women in peril and then-" he thrust his hips suggestively and made the bow-chika-wow wow sound-" they repay you. Generously. There's all kinds of different movies pairing you up with the different ladies of Gotham too. You and Catwoman, you and Batgirl, you and Harley Quinn, theres even some with you and the Joker, because, you know, some people swing that way and we want a part of their sweet, sweet, market share."

"You mean theres...movies,"Batman tried to get the words out, "where...me and the Joker-How long has this been going on!"

"A pretty long time now," Chad-Batman said, "In fact, I just received the lifetime achievement award from the Association of Gotham Adult Film Critics."

"How did I not know about this!" Batman shouted.

Chad-Batman shrugged. "I guess you don't watch a lot of porn."

"I watch plenty of-Never mind."

Chad-Batman grinned. "So...how big is it? Just want to know how accurate we were," he asked.

"I'm not telling you!"

Batman removed himself from Chad-Batman's vicinity and went over to Robin.

"Robin, I think we should leave, were obviously not finding anything out by being here."

"But I want to see how the movie ends," Robin said.

"We can see it when it comes out."

"I don't think any studio would actually release this. It'll probably end up sitting on the shelf."

"Uh, fine," Batman said, slumping down in the chair next to him.

Scarecrow called out 'Action' and the final scene commenced filming. Chad-Batman and Wiley-Robin broke down the door to the boiler room and began advancing on the two girls.

"Hahahaha!" Chad-Batman laughed, evilly. "All these years pretending to be a force for good was just me trying to get people to trust me so I could rape and murder them! You all will suffer. Suffer at the hands of me, Batman! Caped crusader for all that is impure and evil!"

Batman shot Scarecrow a death-glare. "I object to this part too. And what was that about the characters not being the actual Batman and Robin?"

"And I said, no where in the script does is it that they are. If the audience draws that conclusion, that isn't my fault." Scarecrow replied.

"Yeah, well, I'm not gonna stand for this," Batman whispered. He turned to Robin. "I've got an idea."

* * *

After Scarecrow called 'cut', Batman and Robin called over Chad-Batman and Wiley-Robin to set their plan into motion.

"So what did you guys want to talk to us about," Wiley-Robin asked as he and Chad-Batman walked towards the witness-free part of the set that Batman had wanted to meet them at.

"Okay, Robin, on the count of three. One, two, three-"

Batman quickly tied them up with the rope from his belt, while Robin covered their mouths with duck tape. They then, dragged the two of them into one of the classrooms and shut the door. When that was done they ran back to the set and took Chad and Wiley's places.

"It's about time, you two got back here," Scarecrow said, "We've got all the fake blood ready so let's get to the grand finale." The Scarecrow looked at the two girls filming the last scene and yelled 'Action' through his bullhorn.

"Would you put that fucking camera down! We're about to die!" one of the actresses screamed.

"No! I'm going to keep filming until the bitter end. Because the world needs to know what happened!" the other one shouted.

"Oh please have mercy on us, Batman and Robin. Please mend your evil, evil ways!" The first one cried.

Batman dramatically stalked toward them and then smiled. "Why of course we will," he exclaimed. "You see, that other Batman and Robin that were trying to kill you weren't the real us at all. They were imposters! Robin and I would never treat innocent people like this."

"What!" Scarecrow shouted, flipping through his script. "I don't remember writing that."

Batman then turned and looked directly into the camera. "Listen everybody, horror movies treat it lightly, but death and pain and misery are all a very serious matter. It's okay if you want to escape the world for two hours, but when you get back into the real world, remember to treat each other right. And to take care of those in need."

"Wait a minute," Scarecrow realized, "that's not Chad's voice at all. You're the real Batman! Well nice try, but were just gonna shoot the scene again the way it was originally written."

"Actually, we can't," the actress with the camera said. "The batteries dead."

"So? We'll just buy another one."

"Actually," Gretchen began "We're all out of money, we can't even afford the wrap party."

"Oh no!" Scarecrow said, "Not the wrap party. We were gonna have it at the karaoke bar down the street. I made a reservation and everything," he said, sadly.

"Sorry, Jonathan."

Batman smiled, smugly. "Well, our job is done here, Robin."

"So, who are we gonna go visit next, Batman?"

"I guess Mad Hatter is our next stop. I have a theory that his mind control technology might have something to do with what we've been investigating."

"Maybe."

Robin sighed wistfully. "I still wish I could see how this movie is gonna turn out."

* * *

One Year Later

"I can't believe they actually released this movie after all," Tim said, munching on his popcorn in the darkened theater.

"They apparently weren't going to," Bruce, who was sitting next to him, said. "But it was getting a lot of publicity for all it's, uh, 'so bad it's good' qualities. Critics are saying that it's like the horror movie version of 'The Room'," Bruce said, cringing at yet another badly acted, badly written, nonsensical scene as it played on the screen in front of them.

"Hey Bruce," Tim whispered to him, "Your big scene is coming up."

The real Batman and Robin suddenly appeared on the screen, menacing towards two frightened girls.

"Oh please have mercy on us, Batman and Robin. Please mend your evil, evil ways!"

"Here it comes," Tim whispered.

The Batman on the screen smiled and opened his mouth to speak, when the screen paused.

"We have to go now. Our planet needs us," a voice that was distinctly not Batman's, said over his unmoving mouth.

The Batman and Robin on screen were awkwardly lifted out of the frame by what looked like the worlds worst CGI and the next thing that appeared on screen was a crudely drawn note stating 'Batman and Robin died on the way back to their home planet'.

"What the hell was that!" an outraged Bruce shouted. "How could they do that?"

"Yeah," said the guy sitting in from of them. "They totally stole that from The Simpsons!"

"Wow, Batman and Robin came from another planet?" someone else said.

Tim shrugged. "Well, at least we got to be in a movie."


	5. Mad Hatter

"The 5th Annual Alice-Con?" Batgirl said, reading the banner over the door of the convention her, Batman, and Robin were standing in front of, "The largest gathering of overly-obsessed Alice in Wonderland fans in the world."

"Aw, great," Robin said, kicking the ground, "I don't want to spend my whole afternoon hanging a bunch of dork's in cheesy costumes."

"Yeah, I know," Batman agreed, adjusting his outside underwear and making sure his pointy-eared cowl was secured to his head, "Geeks make me so uncomfortable. I mean, when I think about them spending their entire lives in a fantasy world, parading around in their ridiculous costumes, taking on the persona of a fictional character, or animal or whatever." He shook his head. "Why can't they just be themselves?"

The three of them went into the convention center and ran into their first obstacle of the day.

"How are we going find him in here?" Robin asked, as the trio found themselves surrounded by hundreds of costumed attendees dressed as characters from Alice in Wonderland, including a couple dozen Mad Hatters.

"We'll just have to keep our eye's opened," Batman replied, "Mad Hatter's pretty, distinctive looking, even without the costume, so try to get a close look at everyone dressed in that costume." Batman surveyed the scene of cosplaying nerds with a mix of hostility and distrust and then put his hands on Robin and Batgirl's shoulders, taking them into a huddle and whispering, "And remember," he said, seriously, "do not make direct eye contact. Look at the people we're dealing with here" he nodded his head in nerdly directions, "they'll probably take any acknowledgement of their existence as an excuse to drag us into some sort of weird Furry, Harajuku, yaoi, sex ritual."

Batman released them and looked earnestly into their eyes. "Be strong, my children. May the Bat-God smile upon you this day."

"And may the Bat-God also smile upon you," Robin and Batgirl replied in unison.

With that they began roaming through the convention center, searching through the costumed hordes for the man with the right mind-magic to brainwash Gotham's super criminals into resigning themselves to lives of domestic hell in Suburbia, directing shitty c-grade horror movies, and punching inflatable clowns for the benefit of mental patients (or at least that was Batman's theory-of-the-moment).

"I don't see him anywhere," Batgirl said, looking around, "I hear he was the one who organized this convention in the first place, so if he's the one in charge, maybe if we ask someone, they might know where he is. Hey! That woman over there's wearing a volunteer badge, we should ask her."

The woman in question was dressed in an extremely inappropriate, if you remember that Alice is a little kid in the book, outfit that was a dominatrix version of the classic blue dress, complete with a blonde wig that looked like it was abandoned by a hair-metal band member circa 1987 and then fished out of a sewer twenty years later. She was also petting a man who was curled up on the ground next to her, dressed in a cheshire cat costume and licking his hands.

"Batgirl, no!" Batman shouted, as Batgirl started walking towards them, "Furry! Furry at 5 o'clock! Do not make eye contact!"

"Could you tell us where to find Jervis Tetch?" Batgirl asked the woman.

"Of course I can," the woman said, "But that because we're about to have us a nice tea party and that's where Jervis is gonna be. Would you like to join our tea party?" the woman asked, continuing to pet her cheshire cat friend.

"Don't say 'yes!'" Batman yelled, "Don't you know anything! 'Tea party' is code for 'Furry sex ritual'!"

"It is?" Robin asked.

"Well...probably."

"Why do you even have such a problem with Furries? Considering that you, yourself actually kind of dress up like an animal a lot and, you know, there's your thing with Catwoman and all."

"That's...different," Batman.

"Batman, have you ever considered that you might be a self-hating Furry?"

"No! That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!"

"So, you and Catwoman only being attracted to each other when you're in your animal persona's, that's...just a coincidence?"

"You know, I hear Aquaman's been looking for a ward."

"I'll shut up."

So Batman, Robin, and Batgirl ended up following Dominatrix Alice and her furry friend to the room in the convention center where the tea party would be held.

"You're costumes are wonderful," Dominatrix Alice said, as she paused outside the door, "They look so well made and the fabric is so high quality. You're truly an inspiration to cosplayer's everywhere."

"We're not cosplayer's," Batman responded.

"You're not? But you're Cleary in costume. Why else come to Alice-Con dressed like that?"

"But, we're not dressed like Alice in Wonderland characters," Robin said, "When in that story did people with pointy-eared masks and yellow utility belts ever show up?"

She shrugged. "I dunno. I never actually read the book."

"Well, that explains your costume," Batgirl said to her.

Dominatrix Alice opened the door and inside they saw the Mad Hatter sitting at the tea table with various other people dressed up as Alice in Wonderland characters. When he saw them he sighed with impatiently. "How many times do I have to tell you people; The Batman convention is next week!"

"Look ,we're not here for a convention, we're the real thing," Batman said, annoyed.

The Mad Hatter raised an eyebrow. "Really? Prove it."

"The last time we brought you back to Arkham after you escaped, you started crying because there was no one to feed your pet rabbit, Jabberwockykins, while you were away."

Mad Hatter looked pensive for a few seconds, then slammed his hands down on the table in shock. "Oh my god, Jabberwockykins! I completely forgot about him. I was gonna use my one phone call to tell one of my henchmen to feed him, but it slipped my mind."

He got up and started rapidly pacing back and forth across the room. "Oh, my poor little fluffy bunny rabbit, how long did I leave him alone for? It must be...five years by now! Oh, no, that means-"

"Yeah, he's dead," Robin answered.

"You see, this is why supervillains shouldn't keep pets," Batman said.

"oh well," Mad Hatter said, sitting back down in his seat, "At least I have little Jabberwockykins II to help me through my grief," he said, pulling a white rabbit out from under the table and cuddling it in his arms.

"Wait a minute," Batgirl said, "You named your second rabbit Jabberwockykins II, but you didn't remember about not feeding the first one?"

"Don't judge me," Mad hatter said, petting the rabbit, "Now, why don't you sit down, have some tea, and tell me all about why your here."

"We came here to ask you why and everyone else left Gotham and stopped committing crimes," Batman said, sitting down next to him.

Mad Hatter chuckled dismissively. "Oh, Batman, I wouldn't think that you be able to understand. We all just outgrew that stuff. There came a time where we all sat back and realized that we were getting too old to run around in silly costumes, threatening to blow up the city or poison the water supply every time we had a bad day."

"But your dress exactly the same as you used to," Batman scoffed, referring to the Mad Hatter get-up, uh, Mad Hatter was currently wearing.

Mad hatter took a sip of his tea. "Of course I am. This is Alice-Con! It's like Halloween. I don't dress this all the time anymore. Now you, on the other hand, you clearly haven't changed at all since high school."

"High school?" Batgirl said, quizzically, "You two went to high school together?"

"No!" Batman said, looking at the Mad Hatter strangely, "What are you getting at here, Jervis?"

Mad Hatter crossed his arms and frowned. "Oh sure, pretend like it never happened." He looked at Batgirl and Robin, "He was the class suck-up, you know. Always ratting us out to Principal Gordon. And then there was that time that he decided to cock block me when I tried to ask Alice to the senior Prom. I had the whole thing planned out and you ruined it. And then the Joker and Harley ended up winning Prom King and Queen, although they probably rigged the voting anyway."

"What are you talking about, the senior Prom?" Batman yelled, "What Prom? What high school?"

The Mad Hatter suddenly looked genuinely confused. "Did you hit your head or something," he asked Batman, "You remember high school, don't you? Mr. Freeze, Scarecrow, and I were in the science club together, well, us and Poison Ivy, but she never showed up to any of our meetings because she didn't want be seen with us, Joker was always getting sent to detention for putting thumb tacks under teachers desks and adding laxative to the cafeterias pudding supply, Croc was defensive tackle for the football team and would beat us up everyday for our lunch money, Bane was the hall monitor, Riddler was valedictorian, Catwoman was head cheerleader-"

"And Two-Face was president of the student council?" Batman asked.

"Yeah! See, you do remember high school!"

"No I don't," Batman said, vexed, "That's just what Harley told me, because either you two are trying to play a trick on me or you've both been smoking the same kind of crack!"

Just then, Dominatrix Alice threw open the door. "Jervis!" she shouted, "it's time for the grand finale of Alice-Con! I've got Jabberwockykins II's little suit right here," she said, holding up a rabbit-sized yellow and red outfit.

"Wonderful," Mad Hatter said as he picked up Jabberwockykins II. "It's time to go make you a star!" he said to the rabbit.

"What's the Alice-Con grand finale?" Robin asked.

"it's where we do a word for word reenactment of the entire book of Alice in Wonderland-"

"Oh," Batman said, "That might be alright, maybe we could stick around until it's over and then continue-"

"-and then strip naked, paint ourselves in polka dots, and have a sing-along to the Disney soundtrack!"

"Let's go," Batman said, heading for door, with Robin and Batgirl quickly following him.

Then Batman, Robin, and Batgirl, got into the bat-mobile, went back to Wayne manor, and gave thanks to the great Bat-God on high for blessing them with an unpleasant, but overall non-psychologically scarring adventure.


	6. Penguin and Company

"So Bruce, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?" Barbara asked as she walked down the last few steps to the Batcave. Bruce was sitting at his computer and as she came up behind him she saw that he was watching a video on YouTube. "Whatcha watching?" she asked, "ooh, is it that adorable video of the cat getting scared by the loud noise?"

Bruce swiveled around in his chair and looked at her. She noticed that he looked...pale, and frazzled, with the thousand-yard-stare of someone who had just seen something that could not be unseen. "Barbara," he intoned solemnly, "I have to show you something; a video I found on YouTube this morning when I was doing more research on the Penguin-But! I have to warn you," he motioned for her to sit down in the chair next to him, which she did, "this video contains images and sounds that you may find incredibly disturbing, now, are you sure you want to see it?"

"Geez, Bruce, you're being kind of of melodramatic," Barbara said, "what is it, some kind of violent snuff film or German scheiße movie?"

Bruce shook his head. "It's a music video," he said.

"Starring the Penguin?" Barbara asked, "I didn't know he played music."

"He doesn't, it's a rap song," Bruce paused for a few seconds for emphasis, "the Penguin is a rapper now, that's what he does. For real."

"Oh that," Barbara said, sound completely unsurprised, "I knew about that already, it's actually seems kinda fitting. I always did think he looked a little like T-Pain's long lost white half-brother. You know, with the top hat and the pimp cane."

"Pimp cane. You mean his umbrella?" Bruce asked, "Wait a minute-you knew? Why didn't you tell me? You knew I was trying to track down all my old enemies."

"I thought you knew. Everyone listens to the Penguin now, his music's gotten really popular."

"I know!" Bruce said, turning back to his computer, "this video for his song has over 70 million views!" he put his head in his hands as he stared despondently at the screen, "I just don't understand why! This has got to be the most awful, unholy, horrifying thing I've ever seen!"

"Uh, didn't you witness the murder of your parents?"

"Just watch, okay!" he shouted as he clicked on the play button.

The video started with a shot of the penguin exhibit at an aquarium, with a moat of water surrounding a large block of ice with a staircase ;leading up to it. The ice block had the silhouettes of a short and wide figure standing on top of it. A title appeared on the screen.

_Blood Money World_

_The lights came up and the figure was revealed to be the Penguin, with dozens of penguins squawking and flapping their wings. The music started up and a voice started stuttering lyrics over the beat._

_'I, I, I, I can make your temp drop (Blood Money)'_

_There was shot of Mr. Freeze in full regalia, asleep underneath a pile of beautiful girls in front of the shark tank._

_'I, I, I, I can make your temp drop, girl'_

_Scarface and his Ventriloquist, Arnold Wesker, were sitting in the food court being fed fish _sticks by more girls.

_'I, I, I, I can make your temp drop'_

_Baby-Doll was dancing seductively in the gift shop. Which was a little weird as she has the body of a five year old. Still, it was more innocent than anything you can see at a child's beauty pageant._

_'I, I, I, I can make your temp drop'_

_Killer Croc swimming in a tank with the tropical fish. Then catching a couple in his mouth and swallowing them._

_The Penguin began descending the staircase, while scantily clad snow-bunnies danced around him. Then he opened his mouth and let his awesome lyrical abilities flow-_

_'I don't have happy feet and I'm not Chilly Willy'_

_'I'm a flipper-handed freak and I look pretty silly'_

_'When the hot-blooded birds see me, their blood runs cold'_

_'But when it happens, girl, I'll be right there to hold'_

_The Penguin twirled his umbrella around and some of the snow bunnies went up and began to gyrate against him like he was sexiest man in the universe._

_'I cool you down so I can warm you up'_

_'Take you home and watch Surf's Up'_

_'You got a nice walk, baby, I love your waddle'_

_'Visit my South Pole and don't you dawdle'_

_He put his arm around one of the snow bunnies and they both admired the penguins in the exhibit together, pointing to them and throwing them fish._

_'Ooh, baby, I'll be stuck to you like Flick, baby'_

_'When he stuck his tongue to the flagpole, baby'_

_'In that part of A Christmas Story, baby'_

_'My room is the cold spot'_

_'Call me Mr. Popper, I can make your temp drop'_

_The video then switched to Mr. Freeze. He pulled himself out of his blanket of girls and strutted out of the room, dancing into the aquarium's halls._

_'I walk into a room, the temperature drops'_

_'Because they're scared of me and they call the cops'_

_'But, I've got the biggest gat in fifty states'_

_'So I just choose a girl and then I get away'_

_'Then we disappear and you need GPS to find her'_

_"Oh that was your girl? I thought I freezerized her'_

"'Freezerized' isn't even a real word!" Batman said.

_Then the group of girls from earlier came running up and started gyrating against him like Mr. Freeze was the second sexiest man in the universe._

_'Ooh, baby, I'll be stuck to you like Flick, baby'_

_'When he stuck his tongue to the flagpole, baby'_

_'In that part of A Christmas Story, baby'_

_'My room is the cold spot'_

_'Call me Mr. Popper, I can make your temp drop'_

_Next, Baby-Doll was in the aquarium gift shop, trying on hats with little cartoon penguins on them, in front of a mirror._

_'Okay, I get it, I guess it's my turn'_

_'I'm the Ice Queen, I'll give you freezer burn'_

_'They say Baby-Doll you ain't been hot since your TV Show'_

_'Oh, what do you know? I'm still a top ho'_

_'They say I'm too small and I say 'bitch please''_

_'I smacked up Batman when he tried to get with me'_

"I did no such thing!" Batman shouted, indignantly.

_Now Arnold sat perfectly still with Scarface on his lap, while the bikini-clad ladies around him stroked the puppets wooden face and covered themselves seductively in tartar sauce._

_'Yeah, you know I'm so hard cause I grew up in the hood'_

_'And you know I'm hard because I'm made of wood'_

_'When those motherf*cking woodchucks tried to chuck me'_

_'I threw them out to sea with sandbags on their feet'_

"Hey, what are you guy's watching?" Tim asked as he bounded down the stairs.

"The video for Blood Money's 'Temp Drop'" Barbara answered.

"Aw! I love that song!" Tim said excitedly as he pulled up a chair next to Bruce and Barbara and sat down.

_On the computer screen, Scarface was having more fish sticks shoved in his mouth, only to have them crumble continuously out his mouth again as he spat more lyrical brilliance._

"Wait, you knew about this too?" Bruce asked, "How am I the only one who didn't know about this!"

"I don't know," Tim said, shrugging, "Everyone's listening to it; it's the feel good hit of the winter."

"But it's so..awful. How is this so popular? The song is ridiculous and the video is like staring into the ninth circle of hell!"

Tim shook his head, "This is what the hip, young people are listening to nowadays. What happened to you Bruce? You used to be cool."

"I'm still cool!" Bruce insisted.

"Quiet," Barbara said, "Croc is gonna sing his verse now."

_'My name is MC Croc, I got a license to kill'_

_'I think you know what time it is, it's time to get chilled'_

_'I'm the cool crocodile, never in denial'_

_'I always beat Batman by a million miles'_

"You LIAR!" Bruce shouted.

"Bruce! It's a rap song, there's always exaggerated boasts in them, you need to not take it so seriously," Barbara said.

_Now all five of the former villains were all playfully chasing each other and the snow bunnies around with squirt guns. They all seemed to be having a good time until Mr. Freeze apparently got bored with his squirt gun and pulled out his freeze gun. He laughed maniacally and began freezing random random girls as the rest of them tried to run away. The video then quickly cut back to the Penguin._

_'How this for criminal psychology'_

_'I study ornithology'_

_Girl, you'd love my masterly machinations'_

_'And my virtuoso vaccinations' the Penguin rapped while doing something...suggestive with his closed umbrella._

"What the-" Bruce stated, "Virtuoso-"

"I think," Barbara said, trying to be helpful "by 'vaccinations' he's comparing the act of giving someone an injection to-"

"I know what he's referring to!" Bruce yelled, "God, I just don't want to think about it!"

"People can't really like this song, can they?" he asked, "I mean, people watch this video because it's so...unintentionally hilarious, right? Right?"

"Well, why don't you look at the comments and see what people are saying about it," Tim said.

_Dun dun dun._ The comments section.

Bruce scrolled down and looked at the two top comments. The top one had 115 'thumbs up' and said:

_'Penguin and Mr. Freeze are soooo hott. I want 2 liv with dem in a gloryus 3some and have there babies and liv in Antarctica in an igloo with dem.'_

The second comment, with 98 'thumbs up' said:

_Dude, ur a fucking douchebag. Blood Money rule. Go kill urself._

"Well, that's nice," Bruce said sarcastically, "Who is Pussyeater69zzs talking to anyway?"

"It's a response to another comment," Barbara said, "click on 'show comment'."

Bruce clicked on it, but all it said was 'comment has received too many negative votes.'

"Why don't you scroll down further and look at some of the other comments," Tim suggested.

Against his better judgment, Bruce continued scrolling down, only to treated with such as wisdom as _'If Baby-Doll was taller I'd totally bang her cuz she's pretty hot', _and_ 'Eww, okay, all you guy's saying you would do Baby-Doll if she were taller are all PEDOPHILES, she has the body child still. OH MY GOD!' _and _'Batman's such a fag, I'm totes glad Croc kicked his a$$.'_

"I'm not reading any more of these," a very miffed Bruce said, as he scrolled back up to the video. Penguin, Mr. Freeze, Baby-Doll, Scarface, and Croc were all posing in front of the shark tank with their various harems of snow-bunnies and bikini models as the chorus faded out.

_'Ooh, baby, I'll be stuck to you like Flick, baby'_

_'When he stuck his tongue to the flagpole, baby'_

_'In that part of A Christmas Story, baby'_

_'My room is the cold spot'_

_'Call me Mr. Popper, I can make your temp drop'_

_'Ooh, I can make your temp drop'_

_'I can make your temp drop, girl'_

_'Ooh, I can make your temp drop'_

Bruce could only stare blankly as the last seconds of the video came to a close. Then his brain broke.

"No! This doesn't make any sense. Why would they do this? Why would the Penguin start a hip-hop collective with Scarface, Croc, Mr. Freeze, and Baby-Doll? Why would Poison Ivy and Two-Face move the suburbs and have five horrible, horrible children? How could Harley still get a job as a psychiatrist? Why would the Scarecrow direct horror movies and why would the Mad Hatter start an Alice in Wonderland convention!...Okay, that last one kind of makes sense, but still, Why, godammit, why!" Bruce screamed, burying his head in his hands.

"Bruce, I think you need calm down," Barbara said, slowly backing away of him.

Bruce suddenly shot up in his seat. "I know! This is all a dream. My subconscious created a fantasy where all my greatest, most dangerous enemies reformed themselves in response to my guilt over not being able to keep Gotham safe. That's it!"

Bruce grabbed Tim by the collar of his shirt. "Tim, you would tell me if this was a dream right?"

"Of course Bruce, but I'm telling ya, this isn't a dream."

"Oh, of course, Dream You would say that!" Bruce said, shoving Tim away.

"Look, Bruce, I think I know what's going on here," Barbara said, "Without all the super criminals you used to protect Gotham from, you've lost your sense of purpose. You just can't feel the same sense of accomplishment when all you have to go up against is a couple of petty thugs. So naturally, you've convinced yourself that their still out there making trouble for you to come and stop."

"I do so have a sense of purpose!" Bruce said, angrily.

"Listen, Bruce," Tim said, "I think Barbara might have a point, I-"

"The Riddler!" Batman interrupted, "That's it's, this is all some bizarre riddle he's devised. Well, he won't get away with this, first thing tomorrow morning I'm going to find the Riddler and demand that he explain his nefarious scheme!"

Barbara and Tim looked at each, sighed, and shrugged.

"So, where is the Riddler," Tim asked.

"He's a teacher at Gotham Heights Junior High."

"What's does he teach?"

"Remedial math."

Barbara and Tim both looked surprised. A man who considers Nobel Prize winners beneath his intelligence is teacher remedial math to middle schoolers? If Batman was having existential angst over what his crime-fighting duties had been degraded to, they couldn't imagine the seventh level of Hell that the Riddler had entered.


End file.
